KHADIM SHEIKH Vs. QUEEN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The prisoner in this case has been convicted of abetment of an offence under section 382 of the Penal Code, that is of theft after preparation made for causing death. The abetment held to be proved, was the prisoner's omission to give information of the offence--information which the Jury were told he was legally bound to have given. We think that the Jury were misdirected in this point, and that the conviction is therefore bad. The prisoner was arraigned on several charges, on all of which, except the one of abetment, he was acquitted, and the only evidence of the abetment was the man's confession to the Magistrate, in which he stated that be saw two persons whom he named hold the boy Umes under water and drown him.

(2.) This admission might under certain circumstances have made the accused guilty of abetting a murder, but there is nothing in the law which makes it criminal in a person in the prisoner's position to omit to give information that a theft with violence has been committed; a mere omission to give information can only amount to abetment under section 107 of the Penal Code, when the person who neglects to give the information is one bound by law to give it. For instance, a Policeman or a Chowkidar would come under this section if they saw an offence committed and gave no information, so would a zemindar in certain particular cases, but a private individual is only morally bound, and if he omits to do what he ought to do, he may suffer in conscience or character, but the law will not touch him.

(3.) The prisoner in this case was not one of those persons whom the law compels to give information, and we think therefore that the Jury were wrongly directed to find him guilty of abatement by illegal omission on the strength of the confession made by him to the Magistrate.